alas!--for I well remember--every line was written with gall
and wormwood.

How you retold our sorrowful history, and dwelt on your incessant
afflictions! Well did you fulfill that promise to your friend, that, in
comparison with your own, his misfortunes should seem but as trifles.
You recalled the persecutions of your masters, the cruelty of my uncle,
and the fierce hostility of your fellow-pupils, Albericus of Rheims, and
Lotulphus of Lombardy--how through their plottings that glorious book
your Theology was burned, and you confined and disgraced--you went on to
the machinations of the Abbot of St. Denys and of your false brethren of
the convent, and the calumnies of those wretches, Norbert and Bernard,
who envy and hate you. It was even, you say, imputed to you as an
offense to have given the name of Paraclete, contrary to the common
practice, to the Oratory you had founded.

The persecutions of that cruel tyrant of St. Gildas, and of those
execrable monks,--monks out of greed only, whom notwithstanding you call
your children,--which still harass you, close the miserable history.
Nobody could read or hear these things and not be moved to tears. What
then must they mean to me?

We all despair of your life, and our trembling hearts dread to hear the
tidings of your murder. For Christ's sake, who has thus far protected
you,--write to us, as to His handmaids and yours, every circumstance of
your present dangers. I and my sisters alone remain of all who were your
friends. Let us be sharers of your joys and sorrows. Sympathy brings
some relief, and a load laid on many shoulders is lighter. And write the
more surely, if your letters may be messengers of joy. Whatever message
they bring, at least they will show that you remember us. You can write